


snake eyed, with a sly smile

by faehunting



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fae, F/F, F/M, M/M, Original Character Death(s), atmospheric horror, travelling circus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 04:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14908013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faehunting/pseuds/faehunting
Summary: The circus is a mystery that sets itself up for people who track its movements, for people who are desperate to find it, to find anything. The circus is a mystery that sets itself up for people to stumble upon.In the morning, the circus is nothing but negative space and the revellers it left behind. They sit up. They try to wet the dust in their mouths. They start the journey anew.





	snake eyed, with a sly smile

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to my very first taz fanfic. please enjoy your stay. 
> 
> quick overview: this is very tame atmospheric horror. it's more "here's a creepy circus environment" than anything else. some unlikable ocs die. there are themes of sex work exploitation (kind of??), but they get minimal screen time. 
> 
> the title for the fic is from [black mambo - glass animals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49M1O2YgDfE). the title for this chapter is from [the alter - wye oak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in_ki0kgFw0). the overall atmospheric music spiritual siblings are [stumble then rise on some awkward morning - a silver mt zion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVYKocRMTj0), [paradise circus - massive attack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEgX64n3T7g), and [idle no more - ulali project](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlBwE77Pkoc).

The circus always sets up away from town. There is something special about that, the isolation, the perceived adventure. People follow directions on the yellowed flyers they find. They follow clues in cryptic tweets, in vague post captions on Instagram pictures of twisted, naked limbs. The circus has no name, but that is unimportant. It has no main attractions, but somehow that doesn’t matter. 

It is found surrounded by hazy lights, by the smell of fried dough and cinnamon sugar. Haunting music is sometimes muffled by foliage, or floating over sand dunes, or echoing off rock faces damp with moisture and moss. It is all smears of colour, things moving too fast to track. It is seductive laughter that rings out of the shadows. Everything is blurred and bright and intoxicating. 

The booths are always set up in the same configuration, regardless of whatever natural environment should be hemming it in. There are iridescent flags on twine strung up between awnings, wrapped around poles. Tiny, faded lights float through the air like fireflies. Figures in face paint and masks circulate the grounds, teasing and startling the visitors. They poke with long fingers, taunt in voices that distort the air around them. 

Sometimes they look wrong. Sometimes they are teeth and primordial darkness, sharp juts of monstrosity that cut through the periphery. It is easy for people to shake their heads, to dismiss the image rather than confront it. It is easy to explain it away. They are in a new and exciting place, after all. They are overstimulated. One is bound to see things. 

The circus is a mystery that sets itself up for people who track its movements, for people who are desperate to find it, to find anything. The circus is a mystery that sets itself up for people to stumble upon. 

In the morning, the circus is nothing but negative space and the revellers it left behind. They sit up. They try to wet the dust in their mouths. They start the journey anew. 

 

Though the circus has no main attractions beyond its mysterious nature, there is always entertainment on offer. There are carnival games, pins to be knocked down by knives and scythes, faces set in decorated plywood to be sprayed with jets of water. There are jugglers, and sword swallowers, and musicians playing bawdy songs. 

There are people dolled up in clown paint scattered through the grounds. They move slowly, like they do not understand their bodies, like they do not know where they are. They blink at light and sudden movement, garish paint camouflaging sadness and confusion. They do not seem to last long. Sometimes they sit and stare at nothing for entire nights. Sometimes they lay down and do not get up. When they are replaced, it is by people who exhibit the same behaviour, who wear the same clothing. The cycle is sick and constant. It’s somehow easy to ignore, when surrounded by all the other things so keen on capturing attention.

Sometimes, there are the performances. They are on a circular stage that is open on all sides, surrounded by cushioned seats. Like an amphitheatre, the seating spirals upwards and outwards. It raises itself out of nothing, in spite of gravity, in spite of scaffolding. It seems too big to fit in the space that is there, and yet it persists in its undeniable presence. 

There are twins who perform on the stage, long limbed and beautiful. The turquoise sheen to their dark skin doesn’t seem strange in this liminal space. They spin around the stage, otherworldly light glinting off the gossamer gold chains strung around their bodies. Sometimes they dance, or they contort themselves into fantastic, dizzying shapes. Sometimes their performance is acrobatic, on tightropes or trapezes. The twins never seem to have any supportive equipment, no safety net in case they lose their balance. They never seem to need it. Their bodies twist through space like the wind itself is guiding them, graceful, perfect. 

Perfect. 

Maybe it is that perfection that accounts for their fans. The people who adore them, who obsess over them. People who track them down and fawn over their soft hair, the length of their pointed ears, the starlight caught in their dark eyes. The twins will only leave each other’s sides to spirit someone away, into a tent or out to an open field, capricious heat sharpening their smiles. 

These are the people who will wake the next morning with a start, sitting up from flattened grass or dust. These are the ones who will cry out, rub at their swollen lips, try to swallow the dryness from their mouths. 

Sometimes these are the people who won’t be there at all, come sunrise. 

 

“Lup,” he says quietly, pressing the heel of his hand against his eye socket. He has a tray full of food in the other hand, balancing it while he climbs into her bed. 

“Taako,” she whines, rolling away from him and pulling the blanket over her head. The circus has moved already, their human targets left behind. The only thing left from their night is a matching set of hangovers from heady wine. Taako sets the tray on his knees, and Lup grumbles to herself before rolling up to sit with him. 

The tray is old, tarnished silver. It was once very beautiful, but it is of human creation, and human things do not tend to keep well in the circus. Though its appearance is wanting, it is large enough to plate a breakfast for two. Lup sets her head on Taako’s shoulder while he takes a slice of fruit. It is gold skinned, with orange meat that catches the weak morning sunlight like a gemstone. The juice from it drips down his chin and into Lup’s hair. 

“Gross,” she says, but she ignores the fluid running over the curve of her scalp. She reaches for a small bowl of cloudy honey instead. She eats it with her fingers until she’s scraping the sides of the bowl with her nails, head no longer heavy and full of fuzz. It revitalizes her enough that she can open her eyes without feeling off-kilter. She eats until her stomach stops rolling, taking messy bites, leaving items half eaten. 

“That’s disgusting,” Taako says, voice fond. “You’re an animal.” He picks up a fruit that Lup has left mangled on the tray, licks the milky blue juice of it as it drips down his wrist. 

“I wouldn’t do it if you didn’t put up with it,” Lup says, mouth already full of the entire piece of sourdough bread she’s stuffed into it. “What’s with the continental breakfast? I think I deserve more than this, like, peasant slop. No eggs benedict?”

Taako huffs out a little laugh and rolls his eyes. “How do you expect me to be that ambitious after last night? I need a meal, a shower, and a dump before this hangover’s gone.”

Lup shoves at his shoulder and hides the curve of her smile in a pastry. Her hands are still trembling, but she feels less like she was hit by a train. 

They finish their breakfast in content silence, curled up around each other. Taako fiddles with the ornate gold studded through his ears, eyes glazed over, chewing slowly while he thinks. Lup watches him and tugs at a lock of his hair. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asks. 

“Your whole boob’s out,” Taako says instead, without looking down. Lup rolls her eyes and ignores her wardrobe malfunction. 

“At some point you have to come to terms with the reality of exposed breasts and loose tank tops,” she says. Taako turns to her, gaze focused once again, eyebrow cocked. 

“And here we come to our reality: myself, an innocent being, being confronted with my sister’s big blue pepperoni nipples.” Lup squawks and hits his shoulder. The tray tips, precarious on Taako’s bony knees, while Taako laughs until his eyes squint shut. 

“You’re fucking awful, look at this perfection,” Lup says, getting up on her knees and cupping her breasts in her slim hands. She bounces on the mattress and pulls at her shirt until both of her breasts are exposed. 

“Oh good, now they’re both staring me down,” Taako says through his laughter. “It’s like a, a fucking nature documentary. Like when butterflies try to make themselves look like predator eyes.” 

Taako rolls to avoid a brutal strike from Lup, wielding a pillow. The tray flips onto the sheets, leaving honey smears and fruit juice stains. Lup grabs the tray and throws it on the floor with a shout, grinning through her feigned anger.

“Put those big ol’ jumbo nips away before someone loses an eye, fuck,” Taako says, reaching out to grab at the hem of his sister’s shirt. Lup slaps his hand away. 

Taako falls to his side and curls up, smothering his laughter into the sheets. Lup falls on him with a battle cry that bubbles into laughter, pinning Taako until he can buck her off. He does his best to wrestle her off the bed, but Lup presses her advantage until he’s tapping out. 

Taako’s pensivity isn’t forgotten. It’s simply set aside, until Lup can broach the topic when her honour isn’t at stake.

It’s been hundreds of years. Lup always knows when Taako is hiding something. 

 

The sun is well into its trajectory across the sky by the time Lup and Taako take a similar path across the grounds. The circus greenhouse is vast, the largest building by far. It looks delicate, as though the glass walls and ceiling were spun from sugar. The contents of the building are obscured from imperfections in the glass, making it look like a variegated mess of verdant swirls. The doors, on rusted, metal tracks, slide open with a high pitched squeal. 

The air is warm and thick with humidity inside the greenhouse. At one end, there are trees that tower over everything, their foliage brushing the roof and cutting off sunlight. The branches are bent low from glistening fruit, their skins catching the sun like polished metal. Among the roots, there are mushrooms that are lit with an internal glow. 

The makeshift orchard is a kaleidoscope of light and metallic sheen, fantastic colours shining through green leaves veined with purple. It breeds both sustenance and an aching sense of familiarity. It is a piece of home in a strange place. 

The twins find Merle at the other end of the greenhouse, pruning grape vines. They don’t want to hear whatever he’s whispering to the vines, so they make a commotion big enough that some of the more aggressive plants hiss in their direction. 

“Wasn’t expecting you two up this early,” Merle says, voice sarcastic, holding his lower back as he straightens his stoop. He grimaces and wipes some dirt off his face with one hairy forearm. 

“We’re not talking about last night,” Taako says. 

“Bygones and whatever,” Lup says. Merle starts to open his mouth, but Taako beats him to the punch. 

“So, food,” he says loudly. Taako is nothing if not unsubtle. Merle rolls his eyes. “We need to start cooking for today, my dude. No time for reminiscing about what did or didn’t happen last night. Hit me with some, I don’t know, some fucking zucchini or something.” 

“No rest for the wicked, huh?” Merle asks, grinning behind his beard. 

“No time to reminisce,” Taako repeats, grabbing for a squash in a nearby garden bed and flinching back when a vine bites at him. He makes an affronted noise and tries to grab the same squash. The vines initiate a game of tug-of-war that Taako entertains out of pure stubbornness, cursing as he fights with the plant life. 

Lup hangs back, rubbing at her temple with long fingers. She watches as Taako gets louder and more frustrated, before bending to hoist a basket full of vegetables onto her hip. 

“So uncool,” she sighs. Merle doesn’t even pretend that he’s not laughing when Taako finally untangles himself in a huff. 

“You need to teach your denizens some manners,” Taako says. He adjusts his askew clothing as he stalks off after his sister. 

Merle, in the spirit of camaraderie, muffles his laughter into the grapes until he hears the greenhouse door slide shut. If he spends the better part of ten minutes praising the plants for their behaviour, Taako doesn’t need to know. 

 

The twins spend the day as they spend every day: in the kitchen, on the furthest edge of the circus grounds. The food they create isn’t always exciting, but it tastes good and it’s made with what they have. Resources are bound to be limited when the entire collective is eating out of a single greenhouse. The troop cycles through over the course of the afternoon, helping themselves to a meal or two. They eat before the overwhelming smells of old mushrooms and stagnant water can turn their stomachs. 

Lup and Taako eat while they cook, grazing slow and steady. They will have to perform in a few hours, and they can’t afford to eat their fill when that’s expected. Vigorous movement and full stomachs don’t pair well together. Taako is especially careful - Lup hasn’t let him live down the night where he ate too much and almost vomited on stage. 

The twins socialize here, too. There isn’t much time for it, otherwise. Lup will leave the kitchen to sit with Lucretia, heads bent close as they talk in low voices. Taako will shout with Merle and Killian and Carey across the kitchen, laughter and playful insults ringing off metal surfaces. Angus McDonald, when he can escape the nursery, will sneak into the kitchen and follow Taako like a little shadow, his dark eyes lit with adoration. When Davenport has enough time to sit and eat in the dining space, both Lup and Taako pull up chairs to sit with him. His table always ends up teeming with people vying for his attention. Lup and Taako like to take their seats of honour nearest to him, when Merle isn’t there to pull rank. 

It’s a busy afternoon, busier for the clinging edges of a hangover that won’t let go. Lup spends most of it fending off Sloane and Hurley’s teasing, Taako hiding in the back. Discouraging them from talking about the evening before isn’t as easy as talking over Merle.

The kitchens empty out in the late afternoon, when the regular evening duties take precedent. Cleaning up can wait until everyone has left, when Taako and Lup are alone once again. They work in silent tandem, scrubbing dishes and wiping down counters. The quiet seems ghostly after the loud brightness of their friends. 

The awful smells of human food roll in through the open windows, a miasma spread by the gentle wind. Taako pulls a face and starts putting food away as fast as he can, as if the smell will taint it. It is a disgusting necessity, but their noses will become accustomed to it. It is a reminder, a countdown to when the circus will open its gates. 

The traps have been set. The bait will soon follow. 

 

“He’s here again,” Taako says, after they’ve finished performing. 

“Who?” Lup asks, as if they haven’t had this conversation before. As if she didn’t see the man in question in the stands, watching her in awe, like always. 

“Don’t pretend to be dense, bitch,” Taako says, voice mild as he finally releases his hair from the myriad of pins and starts to tie it into a simple braid. “It’s not a good look on you.” 

Lup doesn’t answer. She stares at herself in the mirror, slowly removing gaudy rings from her fingers. It is best to say nothing out loud, to dissuade speech. There is always someone around, someone listening. Taako stands from his vanity chair. He stretches his shoulders. He makes eye contact with his sister in the mirror. 

“I can cover,” he mouths, exaggerating the shape of his lips so his sister will understand. Lup nods, and watches Taako leave. 

Lup takes her time. She sets her jewelry down with careful precision. She lets her hair down from its intricate coif piece by piece, loose curls falling over her shoulders and tickling the small of her back. She removes her performance costume with slow, deliberate movements. She rubs the makeup from her face with scented oils, ties her hair back, dresses in oversized clothing. 

When she leaves the caravan, she looks like someone to be ignored. Cloaked in magic, plain and dismissable. 

She sees Taako entertaining three men and a woman, laid back on a settee that looks too opulent to be outside. He is charming, he’s compelling, but she can see the boredom lingering around his eyes. When they make eye contact, Taako nods. 

It’s a gift that he is giving her, one that he has given before, one that he will give again. The evening alone, no one to seduce, no one to collect. She blows him a kiss, but he’s already turned away. She watches him a moment more. She turns and walks away. 

Lup finds Barry leaning against the eastern fence. It’s their usual rendezvous point, but seeing him there always makes her pause. He looks beautiful there, lit by the moon, nervously fiddling with the ring on his left hand. 

Lup takes a look at the ground and takes a calculated step onto a twig, the snap loud in the quiet night. He looks up like he’s been stung, nervousness fleeing as a smile breaks across his face. He holds up a letter, snapping it open in the air with a flick of his wrist. 

Lup crosses the space between them in three quick movements, pressing her face down to his neck, smiling against his skin. He wraps warm arms around her body and pulls her flush to his chest. She curls against him, finding comfort in his presence for the few moments she can allow herself. She huffs a sigh through her nose before reaching back, taking the letter from his hands. Clammy palms find themselves against her hips, under her sweater. He touches her skin like he has been starving for her, missing her until it aches.

Lup reads the letter while tucked up around the curve of Barry’s body. It chronicles the past few of his weeks, tracking the circus. It details his latest theories, how he has tested them, how close he is to unearthing the key to free them. 

When she’s finished, she refolds the paper. Barry takes it from her and tears it in two. He kisses Lup’s forehead and she takes the letter again, rubbing the paper between her fingers before setting it alight. 

They watch each other in the light of the fire. Barry cups her face in his hands, staring up at her like he’s never going to see her again. It’s the only time he sees her so close, lit by the fire from his notes. His human eyes can’t pick out the details of her through the night. 

Lup can see him, though, in the dark. She can see all the places that he’s aged, where his hair is receding, where the skin folds around his eyes. She has so little time with him, and she’s already lost years. 

The fire burns out, the letter reduced to ash in Lup’s palm, and they kiss. It’s slow and sweet, their stolen moment in the darkness. Lup smears ash on her clothing so she can touch him without leaving marks behind. Barry breathes laughter into Lup’s mouth when she grabs at his ass, and it makes her heart catch in her chest. 

Lup shushes him, and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him. They lay out in the grass, under the stars, and remind themselves of each other. Lup gets frantic as their time winds down, kissing harder, touching rougher. Barry calms her, smooths his hands over her back, kisses her on the forehead. He mouths silent words against her skin, and she thinks she knows what they are. He uncurls the five joints in her fingers where they clutch at his clothing, pressing her hands to his mouth. 

There are tears in Barry’s eyes when they finally have to part. Lup’s alarm vibrates at 2:45, at 2:49, at 2:54. By 2:58, Barry is on the other side of the fence. He leans across it to kiss her, to feel the weight of her hair in his palms. He pulls more paper out of his back pocket, a little crushed from the weight of him, and presses it into Lup’s hands. 

At 2:59, Barry has taken a few steps back. Lup stares at him, watching his beloved face in the moonlight. Barry takes a couple deep breaths. Opens his mouth a few times. 

Says, “Lup, I love you.” Voice hoarse, open, earnest. 

Lup’s stomach drops out from fear and elation and a frenetic desire to say it back. She takes a step forward.

She says, “Barry.” 

He disappears. 

Everything on the other side of the fence disappears, replaced with a new environment. Lup stares at the space that Barry once occupied. She wraps her arms around herself and digs her fingers into her sweater. The second letter crinkles, and she stops. Unclenches her hands, smooths out the wrinkles she’s just put in the paper. 

Another few days, she thinks. She doesn’t understand how Barry does it, weeks of uncertainty before finding her again. 

Just a few days. She sighs, takes one last look, and turns to go home. 

In the safety of her small caravan, Lup unfolds the letter. She can hear her brother snoring through the open windows in his own caravan, barely ten feet away. It’s a calming sound. It makes her think back to when they were small, when they would share a room. They would make tents out of soft linen sheets and tell stories into the night. For a moment, she wants to go to Taako’s caravan, to crawl into bed with him. To talk to him until her throat is sore. To find the peace that comes from talking things through with her best friend, her twin brother, her most important person. 

But there is always someone listening. She turns her attention back to the letter. 

This one doesn’t detail Barry’s research. It’s sappy, florid enough that Lup’s face and ears burn hot. Barry’s love letters have never been artfully written, but reading them still makes Lup shiver and blush. The words from Barry’s brain, carefully transcribed on paper. The way he tries to form his handwriting, rounding out his chicken scratch to something more legible. Lup scrubs the heel of her hand over her sternum, where her heart is thumping against her ribs. 

Lup folds the letter up and holds it against her stomach with both hands. She closes her eyes and remembers the way Barry felt pressed up against her, his soft give beneath her in the grass. 

Lup knows that she should get rid of the letter. It could be found. It could be used. She moves the letter, presses it to her nose and breathes in the smell of it, paper and ink and Barry. 

There is a box under her bed. It’s doused in magic, illusory magic, delibility pressed into every square inch. Lup rolls off her bed to retrieve it, settling on her bony knees. She opens the box and leans down, inhaling the warm, stale air. It still smells like Barry, if she concentrates. She places the newest letter on top of seventy three old ones, pressing a kiss to her fingers, pressing fingers to paper. 

The box is replaced, tucked against the back wall, draped in old scarves and leggings she never wears anymore. It will stay there until the next time she needs it. When Barry can’t track her down for weeks of her own time. When she can’t concentrate for all the anxiety, worrying about where he is, if he’s safe, if he’s coming for her. When she needs a reminder of just how much she can feel. 

It won’t be enough, but it will help. 

 

Lup is in charge of collecting breakfast, the next morning. They never explicitly discuss it. Lup gives the gift back in any way she can. 

She makes a big egg scramble, with mushrooms and potatoes, spices and garlic and bright squeezes of lemon. It’s way more food than the two of them can eat. Lup always does this, like she can provide enough to equate the time that Taako bears the brunt of. They’ll bring the rest to Davenport, or maybe Lucretia, instead of bringing it to Merle’s vegan doorstep. 

Taako is still asleep when Lup steps inside his caravan. She tiptoes around his disgusting mess of a home until she can climb into his bed, careful not to spill anything on his sheets. He jerks awake, startled by his mattress shifting. The smile that blooms on his face is genuine, when he sees Lup, but he twists it into a feigned grimace. 

“Ugh, it’s you,” he says, pressing his face against her hip. “Get out. I need to get my beauty sleep.” 

“I let you sleep late already,” Lup says, securing the food’s safety before stroking Taako’s sleep tangled hair. “Besides, no amount of rest is going to fix that ugly face, kemosabe.” 

“We are identical twins,” Taako says, his deadpan ruined by poorly concealed laughter. 

“And yet somehow I’m the pretty one,” Lup retorts, voice mild. Taako grunts, pulls her further down into the bed, rubs his face against her ribs. His eyelashes tickle her skin as he commits to being awake. 

Lup sits stoic while Taako cuddles her, cupping a hand around the back of his neck and massaging tense muscle. She’s about to complain about their cooling food when Taako speaks. 

“She wants me to catch the Unseelie Prince for her.” Taako’s voice is barely audible, yet it manages to convey the depth of his fear. Lup’s breath catches in the back of her throat, and Taako lets the severity of the statement settle in her mind. They can hear the movement of others outside, of fellow fey beginning their days. It seems crass, as if the entire camp should have fallen silent for this terrible moment. 

“When?” Lup asks, voice quiet and deadly serious. Taako sits up, that same pensivity written in his features. He pulls the breakfast tray towards them and starts to eat. 

For a moment, Lup wants to argue. She wants to push until Taako tells her everything. She swallows the impulse and looks at the faint bags under Taako’s eyes, the tightness of his mouth as he chews. 

The shadow at the open window, small as a little bird. Ominous. Listening. 

Lup eats. She chews with her mouth open, taking full advantage of her reputation for repugnant table manners. She hums as she drinks the tea she made, oversteeped and far too sweet, exactly how Taako prefers it. 

“I didn’t get him yesterday,” Lup says, still clocking the shadow in her peripheral vision. “I think he might be too smart to catch. He’s irrevocably obsessed with me, but he won’t let his damn guard down.” 

Taako hums, placating. He chews with his mouth closed, a picture of modesty surrounded by the mess he refuses to tidy. 

“I got some. A couple new ones, they were pretty easy to snare. And I collected one for her, a guy who’s been following for a few years. Not particularly intelligent, but he was so obsessed that his mind shattered. It should keep her full for a few days.” Taako sounds bored as he says it. His eyes are glazed. Absent. Lup curls an arm around his shoulders and gives him a gentle squeeze. 

“Good job,” she says, voice warm with performative pride. She turns to kiss the side of his head and watches the shadow take flight. 

“This is really good,” Taako mumbles, mouth full of eggs. Lup puts her chin on the top of Taako’s head. She watches the window, adrenaline dropping with every moment the shadow doesn’t return.

“I’m phenomenal, I know.” They eat in silence for a few minutes, until Taako reaches over to shut the window. 

“The Unseelie Court is going to be making an appearance this month,” Taako whispers, fast enough the words hiss together. “The Unseelie Queen and her son, plus the retinue. She set the trap and the queen took it.” 

Lup chews at the inside of her cheek as she processes the information. She lets out a long, slow breath through her nose. 

“Why you?” she asks. Her brother, assigned to a suicide mission to fulfill an ancient grudge. Taako doesn’t make eye contact with her. He stares at nothing, fiddling with his fork. 

“I have the best numbers, honey.” He says it flippantly, like it shouldn’t matter. Guilt hits Lup like a hammer to the stomach. Taako’s numbers, facilitated by Lup’s absence. Lup assumed the price for her evenings were paid in full, with every person Taako collected. This price, the real sacrifice, is too much to pay. 

“Taako,” she says, voice rough with distress. Taako waves a dismissive hand through the air. 

“Don’t,” he says. “It’s not your fault that I’m the sexier twin.” The joke falls as flat as his voice sounds. Lup blinks hard against the tears welling up in her eyes. She wraps him up in her arms, curls long fingers around his wrist. 

“I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t,” she says. Taako lays his head against her shoulder, face turned against her skin. His sharp nose presses into her throat. 

“Really think you’re underestimating how good I am at this job,” he says. They sit in uncomfortable silence, their only reassurance in each other’s presence. Lup watches the window over the top of Taako’s head. 

With a small noise, Lup pulls a note from under a dish on their breakfast tray. She unfolds it with one hand, holding it out. Taako’s fingers tighten in her clothing when he reads it.

The note reads, in Lup’s graceful hand, _He’s close._

It disappears in a brief, hot flame, and a scattering of ash. 

 

The day is informed by the notes Lup delivers. First to Merle, ever present in the greenhouses. To Davenport, their unshakeable leader in everything but name. To Lucretia, to Carey and Killian and Avi. To little Angus in the nursery, paper fluttering through the window, landing in the tiny cup of his hands. 

There are those that Lup avoids at all costs. The mechanics, who create and run the carnival games. The sprites and pixies that roam the circus, feeding off humans’ unease, flourishing in the curated environment. 

Hurley and Sloane, despite the deep bond of friendship, are not privy to Barry’s machinations. They are wild, unpredictable, unable to keep secrets. The strange and charming disaster that is Hurley-and-Sloane would ruin every delicate, careful piece of the puzzle. They are the wild card that Lup will wait until the last minute to play. They are good people, bound to support the cause. If the situation calls for it, their unique brand of chaos could be useful.

So Lup delivers notes. She sees that the correct people read them. She ensures that they are disintegrated by enchanted flame. The information can’t be left lying around, can’t be shared with anyone unable to keep it close to the chest. Any slip could ruin the plan, could leave them trapped for another century. At best, it would get them all killed. 

At best. 

 

“Hello, sir,” says a little voice by the door. “Hello, ma’am.” Lup turns from where she’s removing her performance makeup. 

“Hey, cookie,” Taako says, still staring into his mirror. “You’re up late. The matron’s gonna be looking to tan your hide.” 

“Don’t call me ma’am,” Lup grumbles, walking to the entry to pull Angus into the room and shut the door behind him. 

“Sorry, ma’am. I mean Lup,” Angus says, fidgeting with a book he holds in front of his thin chest. “Sorry Lup.” 

“S’okay, little man.” Lup smooths Angus’ wild curls down, sits once again at her vanity. Angus turns his little face up to Taako, still focused on washing his face, removing his jewelry, brushing out hot roller curls. Angus waits a moment, as if to see if Taako will acknowledge him. 

“Sir,” he says again, taking a step forward, making himself unignorable. “I have something for you. For the prince,” he adds in a whisper. 

Taako snaps his head around, pinning Angus with the full force of his attention. He turns on the stool and pulls Angus in by his skinny arms. His long fingers leave marks against Angus’ skin. 

“You need to be careful where you’re saying stuff like that, pumpkin,” Taako murmurs. Angus nods, a silent placation. He wiggles out of Taako’s grip and presses the book into his hands. His lips are clamped between his teeth, either in determination or as a reminder to stay quiet. 

With closer inspection, the book looks like a journal. The cover is worn around the edges, pages stained with different colours of ink. Taako flips it over in his hands, opens the cover to see childish handwriting. Angus reaches for the journal and opens it to a marked page. 

It’s full of notes. Things he’s seen, things he’s overheard. Things he’s pieced together from people who let their guard down around the children. The Fey don’t think that human children have the ability to listen, to pay attention. 

Maybe they can’t, and Angus McDonald is a credit to his race. He’s always been sharper than he’s been given credit for, since he was stolen three years ago.

Taako pours over the pages, smoothing out little wrinkles. The notes read like blueprints, sketching out the minutiae, creating a detailed picture with which to plan. Something to understand. Something to plot against. 

“Y’know, Agnes,” Taako says, voice loud in the tense silence of the room. “These doodles are nice and all, but they're not really gonna help, are they? Taako’s good without the little scribbles.” Angus watches Taako’s slender hands as he transmutes the pages, creating exact copies. The ink and wax in the journal shifts until words are illegible, until there are childish doodles of a dark prince, charmed by Taako’s delicate fingers. The rustle of the pages is cloaked under his voice. 

“Pretty silly to get yourself in trouble over showing us some bad drawings,” Lup says, her laugh vicious. Angus blinks hard, eyes darting around as he processes what is happening. He sees a shadow under the door in his peripheral vision. He swallows against the rush of emotion, the same feeling he gets every time he sees them trying to protect him. 

“I thought you might like them,” he says, voice wobbling. 

“Think about it this way, honey,” Taako says, tossing the edited journal down at Angus’ feet with a loud thump. “Every time you sneak out and come over here, you get to see us. You get to be dazzled by ol’ Taako. Me, though? I have to look at your dumb little book. How is that a fair trade, squirt?” Taako hides the papers in his shirt, tucked against his bare skin. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Angus says. Taako takes Angus’ hands, smoothing gentle thumbs over the curves of Angus’ wrist bones. 

“Whatever,” he says, acidic tone of voice juxtaposed by a soft, cool hands cupped around Angus’. “Take your book and practice until you’re good, I guess.” 

“Get lost, before we get in shit for harbouring you,” Lup says. She flicks her fingers at him, letting off sparks that flare in heart shaped patterns. Angus nods. He sniffs hard, warmed through from the silent show of adoration they can afford him. 

Their feigned behaviour, the capriciousness and the cruelty, cannot touch him. It is nothing in the face of the genuine cruelty from the caretakers in the nursery. It’s their kindness, their genuine care, hidden and just for him, that brings him to tears. 

Angus collects the book from the floor. There is a soft look in Taako’s eyes that makes it easier to ham up his tears, letting them drip down his face. 

The shadow under the door slips away as Angus approaches it. He turns to see the twins blow simultaneous kisses to him. He opens the door and steps into the hall, where the matron is waiting to drag him back to tedious, quiet misery. 

The matron holds him in a tight grip, her talons breaking his dark skin. Blood seeps into his clothing. He will be punished for his ruined shirt, after he is punished for escaping. The matron chides him for his disappearance. She laughs at the tears on his face. She asks what he was thinking. If he expected to find a willing audience in the twins, notorious for their rudeness, their standoffishness. She berates him for his stupidity as she drags him back to the nursery. She berates him for thinking that he would find comfort anywhere in the circus, in Fey. 

Angus’ tears dry on his face. He thinks of Taako’s dark eyes, the curve of Lup’s full mouth when Angus talks back to her. He knows that the matron is wrong, as he knows many things. He could put the work into deducing it, into breaking it down to something consumable for others. 

But he does not have to. He simply knows. He has known, since he was first kidnapped. He wraps himself in the comfort of his friends’ kindness, their loyalty. It is stronger than any hurtful words the matron could say to him. 

His journal is confiscated when they return. For once, he is happy to have months of work ruined by an enchantment. 

 

“I swear to God, man, I’m not gay.” 

“I really don’t care,” Taako says, voice flat with boredom. He tips his head back and lets the human bite into his neck with dull teeth. It’s unlikely that he’ll leave a mark, but it’s still annoying. Taako tries not to compare himself to a homecoming queen in the backseat of some unwashed jock’s car. For a moment, he wishes he was still laid out on one of the chaises. At least he’d have some lumbar support for this boring chew-fest. 

“No, I’m serious. I’m not,” he insists, for the sixth time that night. The human - Brad? Greg? - has been to the circus nine times. On every visit, he has tried to convince Taako of his sexuality. 

“I’m serious, too. I don’t fucking care, my dude.” Taako doesn’t often feel pity for the humans he feeds to her, but he doesn’t feel malice towards them, either. This one, though. He can’t wait to drop this one between her jaws. To save himself the energy of annoyance, if nothing else. 

“Listen, Greg, not that I’m not having a good time here,” Taako starts, pushing at the human’s chest. 

“My name’s Tony,” he says. Taako rolls his eyes. 

“Whatever, I don’t care. Pay attention, I want to take you somewhere. You can’t just stop halfway for some heavy petting, fuck.” Tony doesn’t complain, he doesn’t ask questions. He whines a little when Taako pushes him far enough that Tony has to stop kissing his neck. He’s ensnared, eyes glassy, mouth stained blue from the fruit Taako fed him by hand.

Weeks, Tony had said. It had been two weeks since he ate something that didn’t turn to dust on his tongue. Two weeks since Taako fed him a single piece of fruit. Two weeks since he was marked as chattel ready for slaughter. 

Tony stumbles when Taako pulls him along by the hand. He looks a little pathetic, but Taako can’t muster up any sympathy. Tony doesn’t ask questions when Taako drags him into the dilapidated tent, just west of the performance grounds. He ignores the signs that caution against entry - or perhaps he is too far gone to read them. He doesn’t seem to notice anything around them, concentrated on trying to keep his mouth on Taako’s skin. 

Taako’s focus is largely on keeping Tony from unzipping his trousers. He doesn’t need to watch for the warning signs. He knows where they are, and what they mean. 

The tent is falling down near the entrance. The bright colours of the canvas have faded as the fabric moulds, sagging over splintering beams. Taako pulls back a wide swath of it, revealing a different doorway. Tony does not notice. He huffs a damp moan against Taako’s skin.

The room it opens up to is big, too big. It seems cavernous, but sound does not echo, as if the darkness has a weight that fills the space. Eyes turn to watch them through the darkness, reflecting the sparse candlelight. They shine like mercury, liquid where they are hidden in shadow. 

The whispers begin. Little voices, confused and scared and upset. They build, words obscured from the sheer volume, a wave of voices talking over each other in a desperate bid to be heard. 

They rise to a crescendo, a low static filling the room. When they stop, it is all at once. The silence is sudden, and eerie. It is punctuated by footfalls that approach through the darkness, slow and measured clicks of high heels on hardwood. 

Taako works to keep his breathing even. He wants to run, despite the knowledge that he is safe for now. His ears pull back against his head, his fingers twitch for magic, body reacting to a danger he doesn’t fully comprehend. The room is overwhelmed with her presence, powerful and ancient, full of profane hunger.

A dim spotlight flickers on. She steps out of the darkness. Despite his fear, Taako has to admire her theatrical panache. The light illuminates dust motes swirling around her, shifted by the fabric of her dress. The bone plate of her face extends up from her cheekbones, a sweeping wave like a natural crown. It is textured with extending ripples, shining like an abalone shell. Her six eyes are set deep into it, wide and unsymmetrical. They all open at the same time, inky black, slick. 

Tony finally realizes that something is wrong. He pulls Taako back in a sloppy show of heroism, one thick arm across Taako’s chest. 

“Jesus, Greg,” Taako says, grabbing him by the back of his shirt. Taako jerks him forward, cotton tearing under his hands, watching Tony stumble on unsteady legs and fall at her feet. Tony looks up at Taako, brows pinched together. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but he is stopped. 

She has bent down. Three sharp talons hook under Tony’s jaw. Light glints off them through Tony’s open mouth, silvery, dark with blood. He makes a sound, something pitched, something scared. 

She lifts him with a graceful hand, effortless, arm outstretched as though she has made him into an offering. Her thin wrist is bent backwards. Dark blood fills her upturned palm, dripping down the slender column of her forearm, soaking into the hem of her sleeve. 

Tony’s legs are hanging in the air. She does not look like she should be so tall as to tower over him. He kicks out in fear, but he cannot seem to hit her. 

She makes eye contact with him, and he stops moving. He stops making those animal noises, frightened and low. The only sound in the room is his wet, laboured breathing. 

She smiles. The shape of it on her face makes it look like it is meant to calm, to reassure. It only serves to display a thousand sharp teeth, needle thin, black from blood and rot. 

“Do you know why you have been brought here?” she asks. Her voice is both singular and multiplicitous. It emerges from her throat, from all corners of the room, all at once. It is soft, but it is cacophonous. He does not respond to her. Her smile shrinks on her face. She leans closer to him, the coppery smell of blood on her breath. 

“You do not need to know,” she says, “but I find that I prefer the taste of the ones who surmise it.” Tony’s breathing comes faster, ragged in his distress. 

She smiles again. It is predatory. It is hungry. 

Taako watches as she devours the sticky webbing of his mind. He focuses on the sound of his own heartbeat, the rush of cool blood through his ears. It is almost beautiful, the pull of that glossy membrane between her talons, a macabre cat’s cradle. Taako watches with a carefully detached passivity. He considers the delicate angles of her hands as she pulls silken strands from Tony’s mind to her lips. 

Tony’s body has slumped on the ground, empty of consciousness, yet clinging to life. Taako’s face does not change. The palpable hunger in the room subsides, atmospheric pressure lifting as the storm comes to an end. 

“Thank you, Tamas su Tabalu Tiassale,” she says. Taako flinches at the casual use of his name. “You are dismissed.” 

She sinks back into the darkness, the spotlight dimming to nothing, flames guttering out. Taako does not turn his back to her as he moves out of the room. The darkness seizes, roiling and twining around itself in the sudden freedom from light and fire. 

“Oh, and Taako?” He freezes, muscles tensing so suddenly that his vision tunnels. “Please do not forget what we spoke of. They will be here soon. You will be instrumental in exacting my revenge.” Her voice drops in register, edged with thunder and fury. It reverberates through Taako’s chest.

Taako nods, a sharp movement against his trembling. The darkness wells up and crashes towards him, a slow moving wave of misery stopped by the enchantment on the doorway. When he exits the tent, it takes every drop of willpower to keep from running. 

 

Once upon a time there was a little girl, born into servitude to the Unseelie Court. She did not know her parents, nor did anyone else seem to know them. It was as if she was plucked from the garden one day, fully formed. 

She was raised underfoot in the palace, in the servants’ quarters and the kitchens. She was taught to be polite and unobtrusive, to be quiet, to be content in service. She moved like a ghost through the palace, held by the shadows like a child against her mother’s breast. 

She was a good child. She learned as fast as she grew, the tenderness of childhood stretched into long limbs and ragged bone. 

When she was old enough, trained enough, she was chosen to attend the Unseelie Princess, Ailé. She would care for her, clean her, clothe her. She would ensure the princess stayed on task if her mind wandered from her studies. She would keep the princess from coming to harm, even if it meant her own demise.

If pressed, she could remember the birth of the princess. It registered as a busy handful of months at a very young age. She did not understand how she could care for the child when she was scarcely older. She found surprising frustration at the task handed to her, to chide and form someone while she herself was still growing. 

And the princess, she did not know what it meant to have a companion. Ailé was cruel at first, dismissive and untrusting. She did not like being exposed to the girl, be it her still forming body or her structured mind. The two of them worked around one another, bound together by fate and the quiet instruction of the reigning monarchs. 

There was no specific moment in which this changed, no event that either could reference as a turning point in their relationship. For a millennia they lived in tandem, sharing space, sharing air, sharing words. The princess would talk. The girl would only listen, at first. After years, after walls had come down through entropy, hastened by familiarity, the girl began to talk. 

A millennia of long fey years. It was enough time for the princess to grow into an adult, both mind and body. It was enough time to foster servitude; and when left unchecked, to blossom into friendship. 

It was enough time for romance to break through, to wiggle through cracks in brick and grout. For trembling, inexperienced hands. For lips touching, breath intermingled. For quiet promises of forever, a promise that a princess could make, that a queen could keep. 

Time disintegrated for them. Quiet nights telescoped into infinity, lost to touch, to skin and mouths and careful fingers. Silence cloaked them, kept them safe as they whispered each others names, their true names, given free, given as proof. 

“Kâhkâkiw,” the girl would whisper against warm, bronze skin. The princess’ entire body would light up with it, the taboo, the loss of control, the bone shaking love in it. 

A small eternity, given to them by the grace of time. A dozen more millennia. Time enough that the girl was no longer a servant, but a kept lover. The time they were granted became their undoing. The princess became sloppy with it. Princess Ailé allowed herself to be caught in the rush of being in love, and the power to make her partner’s life as she lived her own. They were found by king and queen alike, and their happiness was destroyed. 

The girl was uprooted. She was taken from her home, from the woman she loved, from the only world she knew. The princess, in her distress, managed to pass along a message. A promise to find her. A promise to save her. 

The girl was given to the Seelie court, her contract passed along with nothing more than an imperious wave of a hand. Passed along to an unfamiliar place, full of needlessly cruel inhabitants.

Seelie and Unseelie, the high courts of Fey. Their royal blood stretches back beyond time, beyond memory. Unseelie, the dark fey, an underground kingdom. The fey of the winter and fall sects, creatures physiologically suited to the damp and the dark. They are the court with more savage proclivities, a people who refuse to obscure their actions. Seelie, the court boasting light and warmth, where days are carried out in a meadow drenched by the golden sun. The fey of summer. They flourish in the light, wither and die in the shadows. They put a filter over their behaviour, hide the filthiest parts of themselves and act as though those actions don’t exist. 

Humans try to apply their own labels, where dark is evil, where light is good. They are as arbitrary as their own nations and borders. Fey are fey, regardless of their physiology, whether they are of summer or winter. They are capricious at best, and their cruelty can be volatile when faced with something novel. When forced to endure interlopers. 

After thousands of years, after generation upon generation, the girl returned to servitude. It was grueling, frustrating, tedious. She had known too much luxury, too much power, to be content in it as she had as an ignorant child.

The sunlight burnt the girl’s skin, stung her eyes. She longed for the cool underground of her home, for the kind touch of her partner. Misery took root, animosity and resentment beaten into her by her captives. Taunting her became a daily spectacle, members of the court trying to push her to violent response. They ground her into something twisted with anger, but they could never touch the knowledge that she would be saved.

Princess Ailé became Queen Ailé, the regent of the Unseelie Court. She waited, the girl at her core holding onto one final scrap of hope. For her Queen, her beloved, to fulfil her promise. Forever, she’d said, in the safety of their tower, a hundred hundred years before. Forever.

She waited, and Queen Ailé married. She waited, and Queen Ailé bore children. She waited, and felt abandonment as sharp as a knife. Scraping at her with every breath. Pressing deeper and deeper, reaching the softest parts of her. As soft as she was when she was cherished, kept untouched by the power of Ailé’s words. Petrifying them to be as hard and unyielding as the rest of her had become.

The girl left the Seelie court with as little fanfare as she entered it. She left teeming with an anger that had settled to cold fury in the pit of her stomach. No one attempted to stop her, and she did not care what their motivations were.

She started the circus. She had once longed for a home, but the intention was corrupted. She was sick with fury, with thoughts of revenge. She collected names. She collected minds. She hoarded power, an ancient dragon curled around the only currency that meant anything.

Once upon a time there was a little girl, born into servitude to the Unseelie Queen. They grew up together, and grew into each other, and grew into a love so deep and profound that it eclipsed everything they knew. It writ itself into their bones and became their truth, this persisting, all-encompassing love.

Separation became cognitive dissonance, an inability to understand the world without the lens of her beloved. Separation sowed anger, turned longing into bitterness.

She listened to the lie that wandered into the universe. _That was just the dream you fell into,_ it whispered. _When will you wake and see the truth?_

Love turned to a hatred that controlled her just as neatly, just as completely. In her darkest moments, she would wonder at her conclusion. She would wonder if that was her true nature: something plucked from the ground, something made to be motivated only by infatuation.

She would wonder what would be left, when that obsession was gone. 

 

Eight days after Barry’s last appearance, Lucretia spends the afternoon with Lup in the kitchen. She has more pressing things that need her attention, but she can see Lup starting to wind herself up. There’s anxiety there, and frustration, all the things Lup wants to control but simply can’t. Everything is beyond her grasp from the prison of the circus. There is nothing she can do but wait.

So Lucretia takes the day. They sit together at a small table, chairs pulled close so they can sit shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. They speak in quiet voices. Lucretia has always possessed the uncanny ability to calm others despite her own emotional distress. She is soothing, speaks gently, chooses her words carefully. Her innate serenity is an invaluable resource to her friends. Even in her worst moments, she can redirect a conversation into something positive, can mitigate anxieties and soothe frustration.

It is easiest to do with Lup. She has a natural propensity towards being reasonable, at least in comparison to her twin. Her tolerance for bullshit is microscopic, her own bullshit included. Lup doesn’t like to feel like she is out of control. She doesn’t like to feel worried, doesn’t like to let it rule her.

Lucretia and Lup have been close friends for a hundred years. She knows what strings to pull, what things to say, to keep Lup focused and happy.

“Lulu,” Lup mumbles from where her head is resting against Lucretia’s shoulder, taking silent comfort in her presence. She’s hunched down, bent at an uncomfortable angle to facilitate this weird table cuddling. Lup is always more tactile, more affectionate when she is upset.

“Mm?” Lucretia strokes her hair back with dark fingers.

“We’re not going to split up when we get out,” Lup says. She is so quiet that Lucretia has to strain to hear her. “Right?” Lucretia smiles, fond and soft. She lays her head against Lup’s hair.

“We can’t,” Lucretia says. “How would any of you function without me there to guide you?” Lup laughs, a surprising sound after these last couple of days.

“Oh, please,” Lup says. “You’re just as much of a disaster as the rest of us.”

“That may be so,” Lucretia says, trying to fill her voice with her usual gravitas despite trying not to laugh. “But at least I’m a functional disaster.”

“Barely,” Lup says. She is smiling for the first time in too long.

“I function well enough to make you gather your shit together,” Lucretia says. Lup sighs a little, still smiling.

“My shit is perpetually gathered, Lulu. You just put a spotlight on it.” Lucretia snorts, an undignified little laugh.

“You’re a liar, now?” she asks, playful. “Telling untruths to my face? This is why you need me. You’d all devolve into degeneracy without my moral compass.” Lup is laughing loud enough for the rest of the room to hear. Lucretia sees Taako grinning at them in the kitchen, elbows propped up on the counter.

“Of course we’re going to stay together,” she says, when Lup quiets once again. “We’ve been together too long to go our separate ways.” Lup still has a soft smile on her face. She wraps her arms around Lucretia, a gentle embrace. They sit together, observing the controlled chaos of the kitchen. They are quiet together among the commotion of their friends.

Lucretia takes a moment to imagine how this will change, when they are free. When there is nothing but love that keeps them all together. When they stay because they want to, and not because they must.

She contains her anxiety, condenses it in her chest. She will force herself to believe that they will all be okay. That they will be happy. 

 

There is someone new at the circus.

This alone isn’t out of the ordinary. The circus hosts fresh humans every day. There are plenty of fey, solitary and otherwise, that cycle through. Sometimes to leech off the environment, off the humans there. Sometimes to observe.

There is someone new at the circus, and the only thing that makes this special is how he has captured Taako’s attention. He is a misty figure in a dark cloak, eyes shining red from under the shadow of his hood. He is an image of quiet menace. He is mostly incorporeal, but Taako still manages to trip over him.

The figure moves into the middle of the path, hovering, observing this unfamiliar place, eyes lit with curiosity. He makes eye contact with people and waits, as if he’s expecting others to move around him. Most of them do, annoyance clear on faces and in body language. Someone bows, exaggerated and facetious. Fey that have eyebrows raise them, arched high on their foreheads.

Taako does not move out of his way. Lup tries to pull him where their arms are hooked together, acting subconsciously while mid conversation. She unlinks their arms when he keeps their course. She rolls her eyes, unwilling to play a part in this unnecessary production, and steps around the stranger.

Taako has been looking for a fight, something to diffuse the anxious energy built up between himself and his sister. He’s been meaner than usual to Killian and Carey, to Hurley and Sloane. He baits his friends in hopes they won’t remember that he’s frustrated, that he always settles for an unhealthy release. This weird, entitled stranger has given Taako a fight on a silver platter.

Lup won’t interfere, but she has no compunction about watching with glee. The guy kind of deserves it, after all. He has wandered into an unfamiliar space with the air of someone who expects complaisance as a basic standard.

Taako holds eye contact and walks straight ahead. He has always been bombastic, accustomed to a certain level of both respect and petty drama. Taako is partially eclipsed with black smoke billowing under the figure’s cloak. It twines around Taako’s limbs, into his hair. A nebulous outline of a thigh solidifies just in time for Taako to collide with it.

When he starts to fall, he catches himself with a one-handed cartwheel. The movement is so graceful that it seems practiced, the fall a footnote in the complete spectacle. He turns to the figure with a glare, adjusting his hat and sweeping his hair out of his face.

“Hey buddy, what the fuck?” he asks, taking a step towards him. “Do you often materialize out of nothing to trip up unsuspecting elves? You raised without fuckin’, without manners or decorum or something?”

The figure blinks. Taako takes another step forward, tilting his head back and getting up in the figure’s space.

“Nothing to say? No ‘sorry’? No ‘excuse me’? Do you even fucking talk?” Taako pokes the figure’s chest with two long fingers. The figure doesn’t flinch back. He doesn’t say anything, only stares with glowing red eyes.

“What’s your name, dickhead? Gimme your name, so I can blacklist you from here to fuckin’ Timbuktu,” Taako says.

“I’m Kravitz,” he says. His voice is quiet, surprised, amused. It’s faintly accented, smooth in a way that his semi-corporeal body belies. There is a beat of silence, the two of them keeping eye contact. Taako inhales, slow and measured.

“Are you fucking laughing at me, my dude?” he asks, voice low. Kravitz does laugh, then. It sounds a little incredulous.

“No, I’m not,” he says. Taako clocks his condescension and narrows his eyes. “I’m trying to-”

“You know? I really don’t care,” Taako says, cutting him off with a venomous tone of voice. He waves a hand and watches while Kravitz’s shadowy figure gets caught up in flurry of sticky black tentacles.

“Get fucked,” Taako says, voice mild, giving Kravitz a smile and a little finger wave. He takes a moment to appreciate the scene. Kravitz’s limbs seem to be mostly corporeal now, his form forced to tangibility with magic, held down by thick muscle wrapping tight around them. Kravitz is fighting them with increased vigor, his red eyes glowing brighter with inflating outrage. The tentacles move through the black smog of Kravitz's figure, cut through it to the meat of him and hold him in place.

Taako observes their surroundings and deems Kravitz’s embarrassment to be an acceptable price for his arrogance. He saunters away, ignoring Kravitz’s demands to be released. He hooks his arm with his laughing sister and carries on, off to prepare for their performance.

“Don’t you think you should help him out?” Lup asks through her laughter.

“Nah. He’ll either get himself free, or those tents’ll disappear eventually.” Taako’s blasé response just makes Lup laugh harder, leaning against her brother. They’ve drawn a crowd with their loud standoff in the middle of the circus. Some of the braver pixies dart in to tease Kravitz, ignoring his shouts and darting away when he manages to swat them.

Taako seems rejuvenated with the opportunity to mortify someone in public. His shoulders seem looser, body language more relaxed. When they bump into Hurley, he doesn’t try to provoke her.

That doesn’t, however, keep him from complaining about Kravitz for the rest of the night, and the following day. The stranger would not have been remembered if not for Taako. He would have just been a rude bystander, someone to forget about.

Now he is of note. Now he is noticed when he comes back the next night, hovering off the ground in a plume of black smoke. His intimidation is tempered by Taako’s dramatics, but he is still avoided. No one else is foolhardy enough to irritate him. They avert their eyes, and they laugh behind their hands, and they go about their evenings.

Taako has a word for him, though. Kravitz sees him walking down the lane, watches him approach. Kravitz steps out of the way when Taako gets close, sweeping his arms to indicate deference to Taako’s trajectory. He slows, looking at the lines of Kravitz’s shoulders and spine. He does not understand how Kravitz has managed to make the movement anything but sarcastic.

“Trying to get a do over?” Taako asks, narrowing his eyes. Kravitz makes eye contact and shakes his head. Taako bats a hand at a cold black tendril trying to curl around the collar of his shirt.

“You sure, big fella? Those tentacles really seemed to take a shine to you.” Taako isn’t sure how a shadow being in a hood can blush, but Kravitz seems to blush with his whole body.

Taako blinks. There is nothing cute about Kravitz. He towers over Taako, who is usually head and shoulders above the crowd. There is nothing adorable about him, Taako tells himself. He’s just a weird guy with a weird fetish.

“Well, you know where I am. You know, if you want a repeat performance.” Taako winks and walks away. He doesn’t see Kravitz watching him go.

Kravitz shows up again, and again, every night for a week. Taako shit talks like a professional, to Kravitz’s face, to anyone who will listen. He starts watching for Kravitz, looking down walkways, staring out windows. He doesn’t want to admit that he likes the attention. That he likes the distraction: from Lup’s distress at Barry’s absence, from the uncertainty of possible freedom, from his impending fate at the hands of Unseelie royalty.

Kravitz starts staying in the evenings, hanging around after performances. Taako spends too much time lounging around and teasing Kravitz, slowly leaning into him as the nights wear on. Lup watches him, watches how focused Taako is on this diaphanous figure. She watches the way humans fall over themselves to get Taako’s attention, never succeeding. She leaves him to his flirting, and covers for him. Collects for him. She had never realized how much work it was, keeping up the numbers for two.

On the ninth day since Kravitz’s appearance, a portal opens up in the dressing door. Lup and Taako cease undressing, watching as Kravitz floats through the portal. His red eyes flash bright in the dimness of the room, and he flings an arm up to hide his face.

“I am-” he starts, turning away from the two of them. “My apologies, I didn’t-”

“What, you didn’t know we would be naked? In a dressing room?” Lup asks, incredulous. Taako finishes shimmying out of his unitard and slings it over the back of his chair.

“Hold on, Taako has an important question,” Taako says, careless in his own nudity. Lup gestures a go ahead. She starts pulling oversized, transparent clothing on over her glitzy underwear, over her bare breasts. “My dude, did you just hit yourself in the face? Trying to avert your eyes, like some kind of swooning human?”

The twins zero in on Kravitz. He is mostly turned away, and hiding his face in his smoky hands.

“He totally did,” Lup concludes, and Taako starts laughing. Kravitz starts to talk once, twice, and then falls silent in the corner of the room he’s designated himself to. Lup lets the sound of her brother’s open laughter hasten her movements. She kisses his cheek and leaves the dressing room for a long night of seduction.

They are alone. Taako lets his laughter trail off, grinning at Kravitz. He looks ethereal in the flickering candlelight, his exposed skin shimmering, his loose curls falling over his shoulders and down the length of his back.

“Are you decent?” Kravitz asks into the intimate quiet of the room.

“Almost never, no,” Taako says, still smiling. He scratches his stomach with long fingers, the other hand pulling his hair over his shoulder like a modesty curtain. “Will this do?” Kravitz looks up from his hands. His eyes flare again. He doesn’t say anything.

“So why’d you invite yourself in, fool?” Taako asks. He pulls at a lock of his hair, twirling the temporary curl around his fingers, watching Kravitz follow the movement.

“Again, I’d like to apologize for-”

“Ye gods, Kravitz, shut up,” Taako says. Kravitz, startled, jerks his head up and makes eye contact. “If you needed to apologize for barging in, I’d’ve let you know from the get go. I want to know why you’re here.”

“Oh,” Kravitz says. Taako waits for him to collect his thoughts, making subtle adjustments to his hips and shoulders. Kravitz watches his body move, transfixed, before closing his eyes.

“I needed to speak with you,” he says. Taako raises an eyebrow.

“Right. And you couldn’t do that outside because?” Taako asks, leading.

“I was sent here to kill you.” The smile drops off Taako’s face. Kravitz stands, and Taako takes a long step back.

“I’m not going to,” Kravitz clarifies, “but I thought that I should inform you. In the spirit of transparency.” Kravitz is staring at him again, watching his face. Taako’s chest floods with a hundred feelings at once. Impending doom, queasy distress, fondness for this total weirdo who swept him up.

“The Unseelie court knows what she is plotting,” Kravitz says. Taako raises a hand to stop him from speaking further. If the Unseelie Queen knows enough to act, then Taako cannot risk talking about it long enough for someone to hear. For someone to pass the information to her.

“Well, you should have come in looking a little more handsome, my dude,” Taako says instead, flippant. “You might’ve got me on the first try. This whole menacing ghost thing? You had to spend so much time with me to get me to drop my guard, and now you’re entrapped in the net of my inescapable charm.” Kravitz reaches out for him. Taako doesn’t recoil. It feels natural, to let Kravitz touch him, even after admitting that he was sent out to commit a murder.

Kravitz holds Taako’s arms with cool hands, stroking his skin with gentle thumbs. Black tendrils curl around Taako, tickling him.

“I think you might be right,” Kravitz says, voice soft.

“Of course I’m right,” Taako says. “No one can resist me. But now you can murder me in a terrible passion, rather than assassinate me.” Kravitz laughs through his nose, if he has a nose under that hood.

“Can it still be a terrible passion if it’s one sided?” he asks. Taako rolls his eyes.

“What a way to fish for compliments. I’m standing in front of you nude as anything, just fucking flaunting it,” Taako says. “I think I’m getting _pretty_ obvious with the flirting thing.” Kravitz tucks some of Taako’s hair behind his ear. Taako would be laughing at the cliche of it, but he’s busy shivering from the touch of Kravitz’s ghostly fingers on his skin. He presses his cheek against Kravitz’s hand, and Kravitz cups his face in his palm.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says. Taako tilts his chin up and waits, eyes slitted.

For a hundred years, Taako has been kissing humans. They are hot, their mammalian bodies running high internal temperatures. Taako has associated kissing with discomfort, with too hot skin against his own, with inevitable death.

Kravitz’s kiss is cool, blessedly cool. He corporealizes enough to press thick lips to Taako’s. The sharp hook of Taako's nose digs into the curve of Kravitz's cheekbone. Kravitz wraps a hand around the back of Taako’s neck, his touch tender, brushing his thumb against the hollow behind Taako’s ear.

Taako shivers. Kravitz pulls back, incorporeal once again, hidden in shadow and the edge of his hood. Taako takes fistfulls of Kravitz’s cloak.

“Let me see your face,” he says. Kravitz shakes his head. He releases his gentle hold, takes a step back.

“Soon,” he says. A portal opens again, a swirling, atramentous void. “Goodnight, Taako.”

Taako watches him go. He thinks he understands, a little bit, how Lup feels when her human is gone. A little bit empty. A little bit wanting. Not incomplete, but a little bit colder.

Taako gazes at the space where Kravitz used to be. He touches spidery fingers to his lips. He takes a deep breath.

In the sudden quiet of the room, he gets ready. He has to make up his numbers for the past few days.

 

The circus is over the crest of a hill, the next time Barry finds it. He can hear the music, smell sugar on the air. Barry stands on the hill with Magnus and Julia. His hands clench, tendons straining.

“It’s really beautiful,” Magnus says, as though he wasn’t expecting that. Julia nods beside him.

“It smells good, too.” Magnus hums his agreement.

“It’s supposed to,” Barry says. “How else do you think it would catch people?” Barry had run them through the dangers, the hoops they would have to jump through. Magnus and Julia have been helping him for years. Julia has read his research, poured over his notes, triangulated artifacts. Magnus has always been instrumental in strategizing and practical retrieval. Barry wouldn’t be at this point without the two of them, their talents, their hard work.

But this is the first time they have seen the circus. He wonders if it was a mistake, bringing them. He twists his ring around his finger, a nervous habit he can’t break.

“That smell is really all mushrooms?” Julia asks.

“No, it’s magic,” Magnus says. There’s an upward inflection as he says it, and he glances to Barry.

“Glamour,” Barry says. “Illusion magic. Fey magic. There’s a guy who specializes in it. He’s one of the people the ringleader has, uh, has indentured to her.”

“Right,” Magnus says.

“And if we can free your wife, we free all of them. Right?” Julia asks.

“Right,” Barry says. He doesn’t correct Julia. They don’t have time for it. They need to focus.

“Keep your eyes open. Watch for the signals. Remember the plan. And for the love of god, don’t eat anything. Don’t trust anyone. Be ready to run at a moment’s notice.” Barry has taken his ring off. He’s been spinning it between his fingertips, unconsciously fidgeting. He brings it to his mouth, kisses the skin warm metal, before putting it back on.

“Got it,” Magnus says. Julia nods, determination in the set of her jaw.

If they can manage this, this will be the last time for uncertainty. The next time Barry looks upon the circus, he will have everything he needs. He will be able to disintegrate the source of the ringleader’s power. He will be able to free Lup.

The three of them wait on the crest of the hill. They watch as people stumble out from the treeline, as they walk down the hill, towards certain doom. When the moon has risen and the sky is dark, they follow their path. Magnus and Julia are holding hands, looking like a starstruck couple in the eerie light of the circus.

Barry hopes they’re just playing the part. 

 

The dinner crowd clears out early. This has been a common occurrence over the past week. It has been sixteen days since Barry’s last contact, and Lup is prone to lashing out in lieu of any other release.

Lup is upset enough that even Taako is avoiding her. He can’t help her in any concrete way. Her distress rubs off onto him, which only serves to make Lup more upset. So, Lup kicks him out of the kitchen in favour of scrubbing it down herself. She vents her anxiety into scouring everything into pristine condition.

Taako, relieved of clean up duty, is free to bother his friends. He wraps his bony arms around Killian’s neck and insists that she carry him, despite his feet dragging along behind them.

“How are you so long?” Killian asks, after Carey has sneezed three times from the dust Taako is creating.

“That’s just how I was born, baby,” Taako says. “The big, long sexy.” Carey starts laughing, but it’s cut off with another sneeze. Killian rolls her eyes and reaches over her shoulder, digging her fingers into Taako’s clothing. She picks him up one handed, yanks him forward and ignores his startled yelp. Killian lets him dangle over her thick shoulder, bent over at the hips, ass in the air.

“Oh, you’re right, this is so much better,” Taako says, from somewhere around her thigh. “Thank you so much for your contribution.”

“I’m a woman of action,” Killian says.

“If it’s any consolation, you might be even better looking upside down,” Carey says. She picks Taako’s braid out of the dust, where it’s been dragging. She tucks it into his belt and takes Killian’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

“I already know that I’m beautiful from every angle, Care-bear, but your kind words really warm my heart,” Taako says. Their clasped hands are right in front of his face, so he presses his cheek against their fingers.

“You are the clingiest third wheel,” Killian says. She wiggles two fingers against his skin.

“Third wheel is such an ugly term,” Taako says. “It’s like you don’t even want me to be here.”

“The message has got across, then,” Killian says. Carey laughs and slaps Killian’s thigh with her free hand. It’s very close to Taako’s head.

“Hey, watch the hair,” he says, but he’s ignored.

“We don’t get to be part of the Taako spectacle very often,” Carey says, sticking her tongue out between her fangs. “We should probably enjoy it, before he runs off to play with his weird ghost boyfriend."

“He’s not a ghost,” Taako says. Killian raises an eyebrow and looks at her girlfriend.

“Proof?” she asks. Taako is silent for a moment.

“Well, I don’t think he’s a ghost. He can make his body solid.”

“Gets real hard, huh?” Carey asks, raising the scaly ridge of her eyebrows.

“Jesus Christ, Fangbattle, warn me when you wanna get to the steamy stuff,” Taako says. “If you really need to know about it, I guess I’ll regale you. That dick is rock hard, and bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. Boy got ghost dick for days. He has to stay all smoky because the weight of his massive dick is too much to carry when he’s corporeal.”

Killian gets laughing hard enough that she has to stop walking. Carey presses her face against Killian’s waist, muffling her giggles into Killian’s worn clothing.

“Shall I continue? I could talk about that bomb ass dick until the cows come home, and don’t think I won’t."

“You haven’t even seen it,” Killian says, tusks and dimples visible from how wide she’s smiling. Taako gasps.

“I can’t believe you would betray me like this, I told you that in confidence,” Taako says, levering himself up and sliding off Killian’s shoulder. He rights himself with a flourish and smooths his clothing back into place. “It is also, like, totally beside the point, you monster. The point is that. Fucking. Dick.” Taako slams a fist into his palm for emphasis.

Carey is leaning back against Killian, her head tipped up with laughter. Killian has one hand on Carey’s sternum, holding her as Killian’s smile softens. The moment has a sudden atmospheric change, an intimacy that Taako is watching from the outside. He feels something in his stomach clench with jealousy.

“Holy shit, enough with the PDA. We get it, you’re in love, you’ve been in love for a hundred years.” Carey rolls her eyes, fond smile still on her face.

“Don’t be sour just because you’re not getting any,” she says, stepping away from her partner. Killian tweaks the tip of Carey’s horn with wide fingers. The three of them fall into step with one another, carrying on down the path.

“Oh, I’m getting plenty. My cup runneth over with getting, sister, don’t worry your little head about that.” Carey cuts her slitted eyes towards Taako.

“Collection doesn’t count. You need to get down on that ghost dick.”

“Fuck, mom, I’m trying.”

“Hey, guys,” Killian says, abruptly sober. She gestures with her chin. “Is that?”

The three of them look. There, wandering up the lane, is Lup’s partner. The human. He’s wearing glasses, and his collared shirt is tucked into denim jeans.

Two others trail after him, a large, muscled human man and an even taller human woman.

Just like Lup’s notes. Just like Lup's plan.

“Shit. Guess it’s showtime,” Taako says, under his breath. The three of them split off without another word, faces cast with masks of determination.

They have work to do. 

 

Magnus wanders through the circus like a man through a dream. He holds tight to Julia’s hand, letting her pull him along. Julia was always more involved in the research aspect of Barry’s work. Even though she’s never seen any part of Fey, she knew of its existence. She was versed in what creatures it would hold. She’d seen pictures.

Magnus was the muscle, the one who would fetch artifacts, who would create distractions. He hadn’t paid enough attention in the lab, in the library. The things he sees, the creatures, the moving shadows, they astound him. He is surrounded by the phenomenal smells of frying carbs, sugar and fat filling his nose. He cannot stop staring at faces with thousands of needle thin teeth, smiles somehow seductive around the monstrosity.

He watches two women with spindle thin limbs, their legs tapering down into delicate, cloven hooves. They wear matching dresses, gauzy frills that showcase wide hips. The backs of their dresses are open, exposing them to the night air. They are hollow from shoulder blades to pelvis, scooped out and smoothed over with dark skin. With the correct lighting angle, he can see the knobs of their vertebrae in the open bowl of their bodies. He starts to follow them, stopped by Julia’s fingers tight around his.

Julia is looking at him, concern writ through her features. Before he can explain himself, there is a slight figure beside him.

“I’d like to show you the queen of the night,” she says, her voice quiet, leaning up so he can hear her. He almost misses the signal, marveling over the fact that she is a massive, bipedal lizard. Her blue scales shine iridescent. She places a hand on his arm, and her claws look like burnished steel.

Pressure on his fingers spurs him to action, Julia squeezing his hand again. He turns to look at her, faces her unease, and pulls away.

“Uh, yeah. Okay,” Magnus says, following the lizard person. “My name, um. I’m called Magnus,” he says, remembering the exact phrase he needs to use. The lizard person makes a face that seems a little unimpressed.

“Call me Carey,” she replies. She turns away from him and ducks down a smaller path. She does not look back to see if he is following.

Keeping up to her isn’t easy. She’s small and quick, she moves in ways that Magnus can’t. He manages. It’s better this way, he thinks. It makes him look like he’s chasing her, rather than her leading him.

Magnus follows her to an alleyway empty of people. Carey points up at a window, two stories up. The blue paint is peeling, exposing wood that looks rotted.

With two hooked claws, Carey gestures to make sure Magnus is watching her. Using the detritus in the alley, Carey leaps up to the window.

There is something at the ledge that keeps her from touching it. When she gets close, she bounces off it. There is no forcefield, no burst of light. As far as Magnus can see, he is rejected by the air itself.

Carey falls two stories and lands in a crouch. She waits for Magnus to nod before sprinting away. She can’t afford to be caught at the scene of the crime. Magnus knew that this was the plan, but he can’t help but feel unsettled at being alone in this place. The circus feels alive, like he has walked into the mouth of something ancient, something hungry.

Magnus tests the durability of the wooden pallets on the ground, kicking at them with sturdy boots. He squints up at the window and calculates his flight. He cracks his knuckles.

He’s not as graceful as Carey, but he manages to land on the window sill. Whatever was keeping her out doesn’t seem to register him. He expects the sill to crack under his weight, but it holds firm. Barry had given him a little tool on the crest of the hill, something to break enchantments. He doesn’t know how it works, only that it does.

Magnus hits it against the window, and his entire arm goes a numb. He waits until he can feel again, shakes out the pins and needles. The window doesn’t appear to be affected, there are no marks left behind. The window moves when he pulls at it, a smooth slide until it’s wide open. He expected it to stick, to have to wiggle it through warped, swollen wood. The ease of it almost unbalances him. He steadies himself and goes through the open window. It’s a tight squeeze, but he manages.

The room is large and well appointed. Everything is upholstered in rich fabrics, dark jewel tones accented by elaborate yellow gold. The air is perfumed, but it doesn’t cover up the stench of death and rot underneath.

It isn’t hard for him to complete his task. Barry had prepared him, had walked him through the steps of his mission. Magnus finds the item. He pockets the item. He doesn’t stop to admire it, though he distantly notices that it is beautiful.

Something about the room is making him shiver the longer he is in it, goosebumps raising as his unprompted fear mounts. He is breathing heavy and ragged, his body reacting to something his mind doesn’t see.

He goes out the window, slamming it shut behind him. He wants to find Julia. He wants to take comfort in her presence. He wants to see her, wants to hold her hand and leave with her. But he knows the plan.

Magnus follows the alleyways to the eastern fence. He climbs over it. He leaves the circus behind. 

 

Taako prances through the circus, flirting as he goes. It’s his usual modus operandi, which makes him the perfect candidate to initiate the call tree. He peppers his usual flirting and gossip with their signals, following Lup’s notes to the letter, until everyone is aware and on high alert.

It’s the only thing he’s been tasked with. Otherwise, Taako waits on the sidelines. He keeps a low profile. He hopes that he doesn’t have to jump into the fray. 

 

Julia walks the labyrinthine circuit of pathways, designed to confuse those who don’t know the layout. She watches. She listens. She keeps an eye out for anything she may need to make a distraction for.

There is a woman who dogs her steps, green skin stretched over limbs thick with fat and muscle. She stays a few meters behind Julia, and somehow manages to make her slow meandering look natural. The woman does not approach her. Julia keeps an eye out for her anyways.

Their plan, as far as Julia can see, is going off without a hitch. She is approached by fey, but no more than the other dreamy, unprepared humans at the circus. She brushes them off, and they are happy to move on to easier targets.

Julia gawks a little, more than she might have. She doesn’t want to draw attention, to seem too accustomed to the fey. She needs to blend in. She watches, lets her jaw drop a little, lets her eyes widen. It isn’t hard to do. Seeing things in books isn’t the same thing as seeing them in real life.

A feathered fey preens itself with a crystalline beak while Julia stares. It watches her with dark eyes, shifting like saltwater in the shallows, light fractured on the sand. The fey stretches a wing out towards her, brushing dark skin with the soft tips of it’s feathers. Julia takes a step back. She rubs a hand over her arm, digs her fingernails into the ticklish spot.

“Don’t be shy,” the fey says, leaning forward. “You can touch, if you want."

Someone steps between her and the fey. It is the woman who has been following her, huge and imposing in comparison.

“This one’s mine,” she says, lowering her head and pointing her tusks at the other fey. The other fey laughs, the tittering like chimes in the wind.

“Possessive,” it says. “Is this one going to replace the dragon, Killian?” Killian only grunts in response, putting her hand on the small of Julia’s back and steering her away. Julia’s heart is pounding in her chest. The delicate laughter of the other fey follows them down the path, drifting on the wind.

“That one is pushy,” Killian says, “but the blossom only opens to the full moon.” Julia lets out a shaky breath, her relief palpable at the signal. She allows Killian to lead her around the circus. It’s nice, to not be alone. A little comfort in the face of a harrowing task. A little amity when she does not know if her companions are safe.

Killian stops without warning. Her fingers grip the back of Julia’s clothing. There is another fey in front of them, tiny and fragile looking. There is a berth around it four feet wide, other fey skirting around it with as much space as they can manage in the narrow street.

“She wants this one,” the fey says. It takes a step forward.

“Already?” Killian asks. Her voice sounds tight, like she is trying to conceal panic. “I haven’t finished working on her.”

“She doesn’t care,” the fey says. It reaches a thin arm past Julia, flattens a bony hand against Killian’s abdomen and pushes. Killian lets go of Julia’s shirt and stumbles backwards. Killian doesn’t argue, doesn’t say anything else. The fey takes Julia’s arm with a strength it’s skinny fingers shouldn’t contain.

Julia looks at Killian over her shoulder. Killian watches as she’s dragged away, shoulders tense. Her eyes are wide with fear, with defeat. Julia doesn’t know where she is being taken. The rest of the fey seem to leap out of the way of the one leading her, as if they’re afraid to touch it.

It doesn’t take much deduction to come to a conclusion. Julia can’t imagine that anything good is going to come of this particular departure from their plan. 

 

Lup stalks down the path with no obstacles. Everyone has been giving her a wide berth for the past week. Even the humans know to avoid her, somehow. She walks towards the stage area, towards the dressing room, eclipsed in a dark cloud.

And then she sees him. He is suddenly there, at the end of the path, soft and alive and within her reach. Her heart stops for a beat, for two, and then thumps into double time.

He turns his head. Their gazes meet. Lup’s eyes reflexively fill with tears.

Barry touches his fingertips to his mouth. Someone walks past him, hiding him from Lup’s view, and then he is gone. 

 

Magnus waits on the outskirts of the circus. He sits at the rendezvous point. The desire to be close enough to see his companions exit the circus makes him itch. He stays where he is, where he is undetectable off the circus perimeter.

He waits. He worries. He pulls at the grass, plucking it blade by blade, piling it up at his feet. He waits. 

 

Julia has blood running down her arm, dripping off the ends of her fingers. She tried to yank her arm away, and ended up with a couple puncture wounds for the trouble. She has been docile since, allowing herself to be lead into one of the few permanent looking buildings on the circus grounds.

It’s dark inside, and it takes a while for Julia’s eyes to adjust. She’s pulled up a staircase, down a hallway, around a few corners. She thinks about kidnapping statistics, about the chances that she will be able to escape after being brought to a secure location. She breathes slow and tries to keep the panic at bay.

A door opens onto a small horror. A monster, dressed in fussy, beautiful clothing. Long talons stroking the hair of a small, human girl. Black eyes set in bone, irregular in spacing, in size.

Julia tries to back out of the room, stopped only by the bruising grip on her arm. Her skin is clammy with cold sweat. She doesn’t fully understand what she is seeing, only that she is overcome with the urge to run. The monster smiles, exposing sharp teeth stained with rot.

“Oh, no,” she says. Her voice is melodious, echoing off itself in a ten part harmony. “You will be staying here, I believe.” She stands and steps towards Julia.

Julia feels a drop of sweat drip down her face, her heart pounding, blood rushing in her ears. She is desperate to run, to get away from this terrible room with this terrible being. She is frozen in place.

“He stole something from me, so I will keep you. An exchange of precious things,” she says. She reaches out and strokes the backs of her talons over Julia’s cheek. Julia screws her eyes shut. A tiny, involuntary noise of terror squeaks out of her mouth.

“Mm. Precious,” she repeats. “I’ll have to replace you, so he doesn’t know what he’s missing.” She brushes past Julia as she leaves the room. She is cold. Her touch leaves Julia feeling strung out.

Julia is tossed into the room. The door is slammed behind her. The atmospheric terror subsides the longer she is gone.

“What did you do?” asks a little voice. The girl, the one that the monster had been touching. She looks tired in a way that children are not meant to, like her vitality has been siphoned away. Julia doesn’t respond. She stares, mouth agape.

“She’s very angry,” another voice says. A little boy, eyes bright and alert. “Whoever she’s keeping you from, he must have taken something very important to her.”

Julia sits down on the edge of an overstuffed chair. She hides her face in her hands and lets out a long, shaky breath. Foolish, she thinks. The three of them were foolish to try something like this, to expect there would be no fallout.

Julia is in a room with three young children, cut off from the rest of the circus, cut off from the rest of the world. They look at her with apprehension, with curiosity, with a little bit of hope. They stay close together, out of Julia’s reach.

Julia knows that she is trapped. She is queasy from it. She hunches over. She breathes. The children do not try to comfort her while she is consumed with panic, when she hyperventilates, when she vomits.

There is no comfort here. There is nothing but tedium, and imprisonment, and a low simmering terror in the pit of her gut. 

 

Lup tries to find him again. She can’t afford to be too obvious about it, but she is aching with want. To see him, to touch him, anything at all. She wants to know he’s okay. She wants to know he’s close.

Lup hears the signals, whispered to her with the voices of allies and friends. She ignores them. The plan will go on without her. That's how she designed it. 

She searches high and low. She prowls through the circus like a hungry tiger.

But he is nowhere. Barry is gone. 

 

On the outskirts of the circus, Magnus and Barry meet. Barry’s hands are trembling, and Magnus does not ask why. He hands over his bounty without a second thought and looks past Barry, watching for Julia.

Barry cups his hands around the delicate silver necklace. The chain is made of tiny links, small and intricate. It pools in the palm of his hands, sliding through his fingers like cool water. It is beautiful, but it is not the prize.

The chain is connected to a locket the size of a tennis ball. It is shaped like a blossom, night blooming cereus, elegant and well crafted. The spidery petals are translucent white opal, so thin that sunlight must pass through them. It looks like a real flower, something sculpted by nature rather than the hands of any being.

The locket is sealed with dark magics, meant to stay closed forever. But Barry, he has a lab, he has a library. He has all the tools he will need to break it open.

He thinks of Lup. The tears in her eyes. The curve of her open mouth. The way her body language changed, shoulders relaxing, long fingers twitching towards him. He takes a breath that shudders through his chest, out of his lungs and back into the cool night air. He tightens his hands around the locket. The petals bite into the meat of his palms. The pain helps ground him, keeps him from rash acts.

He wants to run back, to spend the night with her, to spend every night with her. He wants to soothe her distress. He wants to give her the world.

There is a plan. He made it with Lup. They made it together, with friends, with people they love. The plan is in place for a reason. He is going to free the woman he loves, and then every day will be theirs.

“Where’s Julia?” Magnus asks, breaking Barry out of his thoughts.

“She should be coming,” Barry says, unable to look away from the forged blossom in his hands. “She’s following the plan.” 

 

They wait. They warm their hands with their breath as the night air cools further. They shake out cramps in their legs from sitting too long.

They wait, and eventually, something emerges from the circus. 

 

“Jules,” Magnus breathes, standing up too fast. His legs buckle from the cold and lack of movement. He struggles to stay upright. Julia catches him with cold hands around his biceps.

“Jules, you took so long,” he says, pressing his hairy face against her neck.

“I know,” she says, whispering. She runs her hands over Magnus’ shoulders, like she’s making sure he’s real. “I got caught.”

“We need to go,” Barry says. He is still holding the locket, staring at it like he can pick apart its secrets with the force of his gaze. It annoys Magnus, his brow furrowing. Barry doesn’t seem to care that his friend is safe now, that she was in danger.

Magnus reflexively wonders if that is fair, always trying to see the best in the people he loves. He tries to understand, a little bit, what it must be like for Barry. Magnus wonders if he would be able to think of anything else, if Julia was trapped, if he held the key to freeing her in his hands. If all he needed to do was work through the puzzle of it. Magnus knows Barry, he knows the type of person he is. Kind, considerate, passionate Barry. Driven by a quiet fixation, by a desperate need to improve the life of his partner, the person he adores more than anything else.

Barry is consumed by his ultimate goal. He has been working for this for two decades. Maybe he can be forgiven for not being focused on this, on the hardship Julia has had to shoulder for him. After all, he won’t be so distracted forever. He will want to know what his friends have sacrificed for him.

They are close enough to the circus that Magnus doesn’t voice it, any of it. He, too, wants to leave this place. Julia has stopped talking. She is pressed against him, but it doesn’t feel as though she is comforted by him. Her hands are caught in her own clothing, now. She seems pensive. Magnus turns his attention to his wife, concern wiping clean any annoyance, any frustration.

They leave, with Julia’s cold, cold hand in Magnus’. It doesn’t get any warmer, no matter how long they touch. 

 

Magnus falls asleep with his wife’s cold feet between his calves, in the bed they’ve shared for years. When he wakes up, he is alone. The bedroom door is open. He can smell coffee.

In the kitchen, he finds Julia staring out the window. She doesn’t turn to look at him, doesn’t turn her gorgeous smile in his direction. Magnus wraps his arms around her waist, ducks to press his cheek between her shoulder blades.

“Good morning, Jules,” he says. His voice is rough. Julia doesn’t say anything. She presses her hand to Magnus’ arm, a wordless reassurance. Her hand is cold enough to raise goosebumps on his skin.

“Julia,” he says, concern making his voice shake. “We need to talk to Barry.” Julia shakes her head. She presses back into Magnus’ embrace.

“Sweetheart, please,” he says. He tightens his arms around her. “At least tell me what happened. You said they caught you, honey, what did they do?” Julia shakes her head again. Magnus blinks back the tears in his eyes. He sighs against her skin, kisses the back of her neck.

“We have to go back,” she says. Magnus freezes for a second, three, ten. He opens his mouth. He lets go of her.

“No,” he says. “Jules, no. Why?” Magnus touches her chin with gentle fingers, tries to turn her face towards his. She avoids making eye contact, gaze down.

“I left something,” Julia whispers. She turns her head away from him, steps around him, walks past. She crosses the room, arms wrapped around her waist. “I need to go back for them, Magnus.”

“What could you have left that’s that important?” Magnus asks. Tears drip into his beard. He wipes at them with broad fingers, blinks the rest of them away. Julia stands over their kitchen table, wringing her hands. She would look uncertain, if not for the empty look on her face. Her features, so full of expression, have been smoothed blank. It scares him.

“There were children,” she says. “Human kids. And I just,” she cuts herself off, swallowing. “I just left them.” The two of them fall silent, on opposite sides of their kitchen.

The chairs at their table are cast iron. Julia forged them herself as Magnus created their table. They designed them together, made to complement each other rather than match, like the two of them.

Julia touches a chair, as if she’s going to pull it out. She retracts like she’s been burned. Magnus doesn’t notice.

“We have to go back,” she says. Magnus swallows. He takes a deep breath.

“Okay.” 

 

Taako and Lup wake up together, curled around one another in her bed. It had been years since Taako had crawled into bed behind his sister with the intention of spending the night. There is comfort in it, in sleeping side by side. Even when his sister wakes him up by hitting him in the face in her sleep.

Taako pets her hair back while she sleeps. He misses her hair from before, when the pads of his fingers would buzz from stroking it, so short it was stiff. He allows himself to think about it now, when they are so close to freedom. He wonders if she will cut it, liberated and able to seize personal autonomy once again.

Blinking awake, Lup’s eyes land on Taako and fill with tears. Taako shushes her, pulling her against his chest. The tears don’t spill, but she tucks herself against him. He turns himself into a pillar, someone to support her, to comfort her.

“I couldn’t find him,” she finally says. Taako had assumed as much the night before. She wouldn’t talk, not even to him.

“I know,” Taako says. “But he was here.” Lup nods. She takes a long, shuddering breath.

“I saw him,” she says. “Just once. He was gone before I could get to him.” Lup tightens her long fingers in Taako’s shirt.

“What if it wasn’t him?” she asks. “What if she found out, if she turned him into an illusion, what if-”

“It was him,” Taako says, cutting her off. Gentle, but firm. Motivated by love and determination. “It was him, Lup. He was here, and he got out, and he’s safe.” He doesn’t say that Barry completed the task. He doesn’t need to.

Lup nods against Taako’s chest. When he feels moisture dampen his shirt, he doesn’t say anything. He just holds her, his sister, his twin, his essential other.

It doesn’t last long. Lup sniffs, and sighs, and rolls onto her back. She composes herself in moments, squeezing her brother’s hand in her own. She scrubs her palms over her face and sits up, jaw set with conviction. She turns to look at Taako, whose smile is growing on his face.

“Are you ready?” Lup asks. Taako is smiling so wide that all of his teeth are visible. When Lup gets out of bed, she stops to pull her brother with her, their hands clasped together.

The end of it is near. She can feel it. They can both feel it. 

 

The circus isn’t as beautiful tonight. It seems washed out, as though some of the sheen has been buffed off. The richness, the depth of illusion, has disintegrated over 24 hours.

Magnus doesn’t know how Julia has managed to find the circus tonight. It was as if she didn’t have to try. After years of Julia’s complaints, after triangulation, after very precise algorithms and weeks of obsessive searching. Magnus doesn’t know how the process has been so streamlined this time. It makes him uneasy. Maybe that is why the circus looks so unimpressive.

Julia has been acting strange, but Magnus finds excuses. She went through something last night, he thinks. She is not okay, and not ready to talk about it. They have been married long enough that he knows, he knows he needs to wait until she’s ready to share with him.

Something changes when they enter the circus. Something in her loosens, like she has held herself taut since they last left. Magnus watches as she allows one of the fey to touch her, and then another. He does not understand what he is seeing.

Julia rolls her neck out. A slow smile crawls over her face.

“Doesn’t if feel nicer here, Magnus?” she says. Magnus swallows. He doesn’t know how to respond.

Julia drags him by his hand, down the pathway, deeper into the circus. Fey welcome Julia back like an old friend, and Julia thanks them. She laughs with them. She ignores Magnus, other than to haul him along behind her.

He stops, digging his heels in. When he jerks his hand away from hers, she tries to hold him still. Her nails dig in, leaving bloody furrows. Magnus takes a few steps back, cradling his injured hand to his chest. Blood drips into the dust at his feet.

“Julia,” he says, voice strained. “I don’t. I don’t know what’s going on.” He watches her school her features from annoyance, from anger. She becomes placid again, emotionally distant, like she was in the kitchen this morning.

Magnus’s stomach cramps up with sudden, unmistakable fear. He does not recognize this person in his wife’s clothing. He does not know how, but he is filled with a dissonant knowledge that this person is not his wife.

He does not know where she is. But he knows that the last time he held her hand, she was here. In this place. Lost in this circus.

“Magnus,” she says, using his wife’s voice. “I want to stay here. I want to find those children, to help them. I want you to help me.” Magnus’ eyes dart around, at what is in front of him, at the fey watching. Their eyes are lit with vicious glee, cruel smiles carved into their faces. Magnus hesitates. He locks eyes with the thing that looks like his wife.

Julia smiles and holds out her hand, beckoning him. Something in her mouth moves, a darting flicker in the shadows behind her teeth.

Magnus’ eyes well up. He takes her hand. He follows her.

**Author's Note:**

> the second (and final) part is already being written, and i plan on posting it on the one year anniversary of taz:b wrapping up, august 17th. so, you know. keep an eye out for that. if you want. 
> 
> if you want to contact me about whatever this is, you can hit me up on [tumblr](http://faehunting.tumblr.com/). if you don’t want to talk to me directly, you can tag posts on tumblr with “snake eyed fic” and i’ll see it. 
> 
> i have approximately seven million things to say about this damn fic, the lore of it, my personal canon of fey, names, meanings, music.
> 
> thanks again for joining me at my ted talk. feel free to leave criticism, concerns, or other comments.
> 
> **[EDIT -JULY 26, 2018]:** just changing around a couple of inconsistencies, some clumsy wording, and some bad HTML.


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